


the crooked hearts and the crossroads meet

by phae



Category: Bourne Legacy (2012), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: AU, But is it really?, Everyone is Clint Barton, First Meeting, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 11:46:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phae/pseuds/phae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Suit folds his hands together on the tabletop. “You don’t look comfortable.”</p><p>Clint has a smartass remark for that, something along the lines of <i>Clearly you’ve never suffered second-degree burns over thirty percent of your body if you doubt their rejuvenating qualities based on how they look.</i> He fidgets with his fingers and has to remind himself that Clint isn’t Clint right now. Clint’s Kenny so far as anyone here is concerned, and Kenny’s a stupidly good little soldier. “No, sir.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	the crooked hearts and the crossroads meet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Axle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Axle/gifts).



Admittedly, Clint’s not nearly as banged up as he looks. Well, he is, but his injuries look way worse than they feel, which is the point. The medical personnel and his superiors all take one look at him and are ready to ship him back stateside, Purple Heart in tow. He’s considering letting them. The Army’s starting to get stale anyway, and Clint’s all for some purple accessories that are capable of doing all the talking necessary to score him an easy lay when he needs to scratch the itch but can’t be bothered to put any effort into it.

The problem is that he prefers covers that everyone underestimates. And in order to maintain that cover, he has to be so much less than what he is. He’s not just hiding an ace up his sleeve; he’s tucked away a Royal Flush, in addition to a king-high straight and pocket aces.

He likes that it provides the leeway to go about life as he so chooses without anyone the wiser as to his ulterior motives in terms of garnering contacts and gathering long-term intel. He doesn’t like that it means he’s limited to act as the barely functional retard with subpar marksmanship--Kenny’s really got nothing going for him but the fact that he’s willing to head for the front line no questions asked--that he enlisted as, which doesn’t exactly afford the luxury of career advancement. So yeah, he’s pretty ready to burn this identity like the bag of crap that it is and move on to at least marginally brighter things.

All and all, that roadside IED was the gift horse whose mouth he isn’t about to peek at. It’s landed him with a nice exit strategy, and he can probably pocket some high-end pain meds to hock on the street for enough cash to pad his nearest go bag, too. Granted, there’s a fair amount of stitches stretching across the back of his skull, and some second degree burns that leave the slowly healing skin feeling much too tight, but he’s walked off way worse. And yeah, his right femur’s pretty near shattered and his whole leg is in a cast to keep it immobile, but his arms work just fine, fuck you very much, and his wheelchair’s actually pretty comfortable. So, to reiterate, he looks bad enough to warrant a medical discharge, and he’s not about to argue against that assessment. Of course, that’s when the Suit appears.

It’s been about a week since Clint was brought in to the base hospital. His injuries are hardly debilitating by his standards, but he knows good and well that Kenny’s medical history doesn’t support that claim, so he’s waiting around for his evac orders when the sassy nurse he’s been holding back from flirting with wheels him from the patient rec room and into a private room, door and all, where the Suit awaits. Clint’s curious, but then he was also once curious to know how much a bullet through the thigh hurt, given the amount of fuss Barney was making about it. Curiosity, he has learned, is not something that should often be indulged.

The Suit has a bland mask of a face and a plastic table from the mess set up as a desk in the middle of the room. He’s dressed rather impeccably considering he’s on a military base in the middle of war-torn Iraq--a Hugo Boss, Clint reckons, so he’s some kind of Suit’s Suit. Even more impressive is that he managed to make it from his transport to the med bay without getting a lick of desert grit on it. Or, well, Clint supposes he could just be really anal and carry a lint roller around in his briefcase. Like a super industrial one, usually reserved for really stubborn pet hair.

The Suit reaches out to straighten a small pile of folders and loose papers. “Are you comfortable?” he asks.

Clint shifts in the nicely cushioned wheelchair and ignores the aftershocks of pain it sends through his ribs. “Yes, sir,” he responds.

The Suit folds his hands together on the tabletop. “You don’t look comfortable.”

Clint has a smartass remark for that, something along the lines of _Clearly you’ve never suffered second-degree burns over thirty percent of your body if you doubt their rejuvenating qualities based on how they look._ He fidgets with his fingers and has to remind himself that Clint isn’t Clint right now. Clint’s Kenny so far as anyone here is concerned, and Kenny’s a stupidly good little soldier. “No, sir.”

“What’s your name?” the Suit asks, sliding a thin gray folder off the top of the stack in front of him and flipping open the cover.

“Kenneth James--” Clint stops. Shit. What’s his last name again? That nurse must have slipped something to him in the IV drip ‘cause he’s been careful to not swallow any of the pills they’ve been pushing on him; he much prefers pain to a fuzzy head.

“Full name, Kenneth,” the Suit prompts, picking up a fancy-looking ballpoint and starting to write in the margins of the pages in front of him.

“Kenneth James--Ken--” Fucking hell. Sassy nurse just earned a ranking spot on his shit list. He pulls up the image of his dog tags in his mind’s eye. “Kitsom.”

“Where are you from?” the Suit pauses. “Kenneth.”

Clint’s not overly fond of this man’s tone. And he’s more than a bit confused as to what’s going on here. He about 86% sure that this has nothing to do with his discharge--he’s already been debriefed about the incident with the roadside bomb that landed him here multiple times. Clint decides to play hard to get until the Suit makes it worth his while to cooperate. Hell, maybe he’ll even manage to get the Suit's blank face to twitch if he’s obnoxious enough. “Um, when?”

“Before you enlisted.”

Clint shuffles through the folder labelled “K. J. Kitsom” in his mental filing cabinet, looking for a vague but relevant answer. “Irwin.”

The Suit makes a note in his file. “Is that a town?”

He’s persistent, at least, but he doesn’t strike Clint as overly bright. All of this info is no doubt in that file he’s annotating. “Irwin. It’s a state home.”

“What state?” the Suit asks, eyes flicking up to him briefly.

“In Re--in Reno.” Clint is starting to get the feeling that Kenny is being tested for some reason. It’s eerily similar to the feeling he gets when things start going to shit and he needs to get the hell out of dodge. Mobility’s limited though, so he’s not about to escape this Suit stealthily. He lets enough of his frustration through his mental walls to get a good pitiful sheen to his eyes. “Is this a test?”

The Suit looks back up, and though his expression hasn’t changed from the same look of disinterested calm, something in his eyes leaves Clint with the impression that he’s pleased with the question. “Yes, it is,” he responds after a moment.

Clint’s brain, much too sluggish from the pain meds he can tell without a doubt now he was slipped--that effing bitch of a nurse--is working through everything he’s ever done or said since Kenny came to be. He’s nothing special, never done anything of note. Officially, he lied on his enlistment papers. It’s possible this is about that, that the Army, in all its dickbag glory, has decided to pin Kenny with a dishonorable discharge and kick him to the curb instead of letting him leave quietly. Sounds like the bureaucratic bullshit of the higher-ups to him. But he needs more from this blank Suit before he can be sure. He knows full well that sometimes you just have to jump and hope there’s something there to break your fall, but he generally prefers not to act without sufficient info.

Clint drops his head and takes a slow deep breath, trying to work past the drug haze to think about what he needs to say to get the Suit to say what Clint needs to hear. He looks back up and asks, “If I pass, can I stay here?”

The Suit’s facial muscles shift enough to allow an eyebrow to raise. “Do you want to stay?”

 _Fuck no,_ Clint thinks. But he knows a leading question when he hears one, and he’s got a 50/50 chance of guessing the answer this Suit’s looking for. “Yes, sir,” he tries.

The Suit regards him with a guarded look for a good five seconds. “That’s good to know.”

Clint lets his face relax and observes the Suit between slow blinks. His instincts are screaming that something really hinky is afoot, but he can’t for the life of him find any dots to connect. He has the sneaking suspicion that all the clues are there, laid out in front of him, but his thoughts keep circling around the information at hand and coming up with: _not good. Remain on high alert._ His brain is not helpful in the slightest right now.

The Suit sets his hands on the table and laces his fingers together. “You seem to be having trouble concentrating. Your doctor assured me that they have you on a fairly low dose of painkillers. Would you like for me to make a note in your file to avoid administering opiates except in extreme circumstances?”

Fucking nurse. He knew it. Just wait ‘til he’s released. He’ll do way worse than slip her mindfuck drugs once he’s got an escape route. “You’re not a doctor. Pretty sure you’re not supposed to do that.”

The Suit nods indulgently. “At the moment, I’m in charge of all your files, medical included. Not that there’s much, mind you.” He indicates the gray folder in front of him. “This is all I’ve managed to gather in the four months I’ve been tracking and monitoring you.”

Every atom in Clint’s body is screaming at him to run. But there’s a full cast on his leg and drugs floating through his system and he needs to maintain cover right now because he’s probably just being obsessively paranoid because of the narcs. “All my files--it’s all up to date. The Army’s got everything on me.”

The Suit’s eyebrows draw down, leaving him looking just the slightest bit annoyed. Clint would appreciate the reaction more if he weren’t on the verge of a painful fight or flight response. “I’m not interested in the files you’ve doctored up for your various covers. There’s little to no useful information in those, as you well know, Mr. Barton.”

So, not the drugs making him paranoid. It sucks a bit when the world really is out to get you, but that’s the kind of life Clint leads. “Who the fuck are you?” he demands. He’s not expecting any kind of honest response, but it’s the principle of the thing, he supposes.

The Suit’s expression realigns and Clint’s pretty positive that’s his version of a smug smirk. “I’m Agent Phil Coulson of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,” the Suit responds. “I’m here to offer you a job.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was my original starting point for a much longer fic crossing over a bunch of Renner's movies. This scene has since changed drastically and is no longer Clint and Phil's first meeting scene, but I still wanted to write this one even if it doesn't fit in with the larger plot anymore.
> 
> Minor edits 4-17-13


End file.
